RETF questions WC & Gravid?

[ChameleonsInMyHouse]

i've recently added a female RETF to my collection. she was bought for 70$ CND. im wondering if most RETF available are WC. how can you tell if the frog is gravid or not? is it normal for RETF to be darker then usual? shes been active when wanting to eat, but has been more of an olive color, not just at night, but while sleeping during the day. she also seems to have a tad bit of girth to her. i just hope im not doing something wrong or if she is gravid.

 

[ChameleonRave]

okay because i don't know what a RETF or REFT is what is that? lol

 

[ChameleonsInMyHouse]

a red eye tree frog... you've never seen the abreveation for their name before?

 

[ChameleonRave]

oh okay i had a hunch! and not a day in my life! I love the species though!

 

[fluxlizard]

Search the forums for my thread on breeding these this past year. Pics and everything. You may have a female that has eggs- don't think I'd call it the same thing as gravid- unlike lizards, frog eggs are fertilized at time of laying. Females not put in a rain chamber with males who court them will not lay, so I wouldn't really call them gravid in the sense that I think of a gravid lizard as pregnant.

Only updates I have to the thread I had earlier is that for sure they multiclutch (we had 5 breedings from our little group in 2010) and nowadays most RETFs are coming out farm bred from nicaragua. This makes the market for them terrible. We were unaware of this when we started breeding ours and now find that we have to compete with super-cheap (us $5 is about what wholesalers pay for them, then they sell to retailers for $15 to $20 who sell for $35-$60 to pet owners) adult and subadult farm bred red eye treefrogs. Which means the market wants adult and nearly adult size frogs for almost nothing. My boys and I are sitting on hundreds of little red eye treefrogs at this point, growing them until they are a size that competes with the farm bred. If we didn't grow our own food for them we would be in trouble. Thank goodness they don't eat as much as lizards either. They are labor intensive to rear though- cleanliness is essential and takes a lot of time... (we spend a couple of hours every other night cleaning the red eye treefrog enclosures).

 

[fluxlizard]

To answer your other questions though- dark coloration is not a good thing and indicates something is wrong.

A few things we have learned- some of what you read online about these guys is just plain wrong.

They need plenty of ventilation. Humidity, at least in our home, is mostly irrelevant. Our frogs do great with plenty of ventilation even when ambient humidity is very low in the middle of winter. They are very good at getting all the water they need by backing their bums into the water bowl at night and soaking up water and then conserving it by hunkering down during the day. Too much humidity and/or inadequate ventilation will cause dark coloration and invites life-threatening bacterial infections.

The other thing is temperature. Most info you find online will recommend heat lights or panels, etc. This IMO is usually a mistake to do. Our frogs do great at temps from about 67 to 86. I don't think we have gone lower or higher than that, so I cannot comment much about temps outside of that range. But I can tell you that we use absolutely no extra heating. We keep our frogs to the side of a south facing window where they receive no direct sunlight, but temps on sunny winter days climb to about 74. Many winter days are cloudy and the temps never climb above 69. Most of the time for several winter months temps are 68 to 73. The frogs do great. In fact, we learned that ours will breed even during these cooler temps. Our temps only climb to the upper 70s when spring comes and low 80s during the summer. Night temps during the summer are warmer too (we set our air conditioning to keep things about 77, but the window makes things warmer in that area during the day. During the winter we set our heat to 68, again the window warms things above that during sunny days). I do not recommend extra heat unless your home falls below the temps that our home has. Our frogs do great (so do our tadpoles- but metamorphosis takes many weeks longer) at these temps.

If things are correct, your frog will be a bright flourescent lime green during the day and maybe a grass green when it is awake and active at night. If your frog is dark- something is wrong.

One last tip- cleanliness is essential with these frogs. Keep a clean tank- bacteria can cause problems and turn your frog dark as well (and kill it eventually).

For water we use a plastic shoe box half filled with water with a pothos vine growing directly in the water so the frogs can climb on it and not drown.

 

[fluxlizard]

link to my thread earlier this year on breeding these frogs.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/my-red-eye-treefrog-eggs-41459/

 

[ChameleonsInMyHouse]

fluxlizard, that is amazing info. i will give you a brief about my husbandry. it is a 10 deep, 20 long, 19 high, live planted with polka-dots, pothos and this small type of palm. there is forest floor substrate that is bagged up and distributed as bulk. lable reads "contains moss - pH 5.4 to 6.8. High Moisture Retention Capacity. No Added Chemicals. ontop of 90% of the substrate, i have zoo meds live moss. for decor, one fake plant, a plate-mounted drift wood branch and a piece of cork bark. there is a small feeding dish that i fill 1/2 way with water (clean water every night condidtioned with one drop of exo-terra's Auquatize). Her diet consist of 4 crickets dusted with herptivite everyother day. shes been dusted once with calcium D3 and will be again in 2 weeks.

for temperature it reaches from 69-82 in the day, i try and keep it steady around 74-75. humidity never exceeds 70%, i have a humidifer in my room, and only spray the cage once a day or once every other day. i will generally give my moss a good water every other day.

i am schedualed to clean and disinfect all my cages tonight using Pangea Reptile's disinfectant spray. this will be the first time cleaning the tank since i have not had the frog long. how do i properly clean it?

she doesnt use any additional heating, but i do keep a low wattage black light to view at night.

she was 12 grams a week ago today and has gain 3 grams since bringing her to 15 grams which leads me to think she has eggs.

she was lime green when i checked on her about 30 minutes ago, but has gone slightly darker since i woke her up, i believe it is due to stress. she does eat perfectly fine and is very active at night. she does sleep through the night, unless to bathe on days when i dont feed her.

am i doing alright? i hope you can get back to me before i clean the cages. thank you so much for all of your help and im going to check out that thread link.

look for rep points.

 

[ChameleonsInMyHouse]

great thread flux. i do but i dont hope my girl has eggs cause that looks like soo much work! lol but keep me up. will females lay eggs regardless of water and humidty and temps, or is the range of what im in now fine? i wish you had pictures of your gravid females